The Pebble is a smartwatch developed by Pebble Technology Corporation[13] and released in 2013 that was funded via the crowd funding platform Kickstarter. It features a black and white e-paper display, a vibrating motor, a magnetometer, ambient light sensors and an accelerometer, enabling its use as an activity tracker. The Pebble is compatible with Android and iOS devices. When connected to a phone, it can receive a vibrating alert to text messages, emails, incoming calls, and notifications from social media accounts. It can also act as a remote controller for the phone, or for cameras such as the GoPro. As of February 2014, the Pebble app store had over 1,000 applications.[14]

The Pebble raised $10.3 million through Kickstarter, the most for any product on the site until that time. Best Buy, an American consumer electronics corporation, began selling Pebble smartwatches in July 2013, and sold out within five days.

Contents

History[edit]

Development[edit]

The Pebble Watch was designed based on a concept by Eric Migicovsky describing a watch that could display messages from a smartphone and select android devices. Migicovsky successfully took his idea through the Y Combinator business incubator program, and unusually for a startup company at Y Combinator, Migicovsky's business actually generated revenue during the program.[15] Migicovsky was able to raise US$375,000 from investors such as Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, but was unable to raise additional funds.[15] Discussing his inability to raise further funds, Migicovsky told the Los Angeles Times, "I wasn't extremely surprised... hardware is much harder to raise money for. We were hoping we could convince some people to our vision, but it didn't work out."[16]

Funding[edit]

After raising venture capital for the product under their former name inPulse, the company failed to attract traditional investors under their new brand name,[15] so the company requested crowd funding in April 2012.

Migicovsky's company Pebble Technology launched a Kickstarter campaign on 02012-04-11-0000April 11, 2012 with an initial fundraising target of $100,000. Backers spending $115 would receive a Pebble when they became available ($99 for the first 200),[17] effectively pre-ordering the $150 Pebble at a discounted price.[16] Within two hours of going live, the project had met the $100,000 goal, and within six days, the project had become the most funded project in the history of Kickstarter to that point, raising over $4.7 million with 30 days left in the campaign.[16][18]

On 02012-05-10-0000May 10, 2012, Pebble Technology announced they were limiting the number of pre-orders. On 02012-05-18-0000May 18, 2012, funding closed with $10,266,844 pledged by 68,928 people.[19]

Production[edit]

Pebble entered mass production in January 2013 with a planned production of 15,000 watches per week. Shipping was first expected to begin September 2012,[20] but later on Pebble Technology was expected to begin shipping units on January 23, 2013.[21] As of March 20, 2014, Pebble has sold over 400,000 units.[22]

Features[edit]

Hardware[edit]

Pebble can send users notifications when they receive an email.

A Pebble attached to a bike, displaying bicycling speed and distance, as well as time

The watch has a 1.26-inch 144 × 168 pixel black and white e-paper display using an ultra low-power "transflectiveLCD" manufactured by Sharp with a backlight, a vibrating motor, a magnetometer, ambient light sensors and a three-axis accelerometer.[8][23][24][25][26] It can communicate with an Android or iOS device using both Bluetooth 2.1 and Bluetooth 4.0 (Bluetooth Low Energy) using Stonestreet One's Bluetopia+MFi software stack.[27] Bluetooth 4.0 with low energy (LE) support was not initially enabled, but a firmware update in November 2013 enabled it.[28] The watch is charged using a modified USB-cable that attaches magnetically to the watch to maintain water resistance capability.[23] The battery was reported in April 2012 to last seven days.[29] Based on feedback from Kickstarter backers, the developers added water-resistance to the list of features.[30] The Pebble has a waterproof rating of 5 atm, which means it can be submerged down to 40m and has been tested in both fresh and salt water, allowing one to shower, dive or swim while wearing the watch.[31]

Software[edit]

As of February 2014[update], the Pebble app store had over 1,000 applications.[14] These include notifications for emails, calls, text messages & social media activity; stock prices; activity tracking (movement, sleep, estimates of calories burned); remote controls for smartphones, cameras & home appliances; turn-by-turn directions (using the GPS receiver in a smartphone or tablet); display of RSS or JSON feeds; and hundreds of custom watch faces.

The Pebble was originally slated to ship with apps pre-installed, including a cycling app to measure speed, distance & pace through GPS, and a golf rangefinder app supporting more than 25,000 courses. These apps use data received from a connected phone for distance, speed and range information. More apps are downloadable via a mobile phone or tablet, and an SDK is freely available.[32] Not all apps were installed when the watch originally shipped, but CEO Eric Migicovsky announced on January 9, 2013 that every 2–3 weeks updates for the watch's OS (based on a FreeRTOS kernel) would be released until all features are added.[23]

There are plans for the Pebble to integrate with the web service IFTTT, which will allow users to create rules for events that will send notifications to the watch.[33] The watch's firmware operating system is based on a FreeRTOS kernel and uses Newlib, the STM32 Peripheral Lib, the Ragel state machine compiler, and an unnamed UTF-8 Decoder.[34]

Pebble SDK[edit]

Pebble Technology announced that an open Pebble software development kit (SDK) would be released before shipment of the watches began.[35] A proof-of-concept watchface SDK and documentation were released on April 12, 2013.[36][37] The released SDK was limited to development for watch faces, simple applications and games. The second release of the SDK (now known as PebbleKit) was released on May 17, 2013, adding support for two-way communication between Pebbles and smartphones running iOS or Android via the AppMessage framework.

The latest Pebble SDK includes access to the accelerometer, as well as a Javascript API. The beta is not backwards compatible with 1.x apps, and as a result developers will have to port their apps over to the second-gen firmware.[38]

Reception[edit]

The first edition of the Pebble was released to mixed reviews. The design was acclaimed for being innovative, and the watch vibration results in higher awareness of phone alerts.[39] For the Pebble Steel model reviewers noted the large price jump from $149 to $249 USD, the continued lack of touch-activation, and the cosmetic overhaul described as "less-geeky".[40]

Pebble Steel[edit]

The Pebble Steel is the next generation of Pebble. Announced at CES 2014, it has a thinner body, tactile metal buttons, and Corning Gorilla Glass. It comes in 2 variations: a black matte finish and a brushed stainless steel finish, with both a black leather band and a matching steel band.